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ments, and contrive different methods of wearing out the day.

Here then is the fund, from which thofe who study mankind may fill their compofitions with an inexhauftible variety of images and allufions: and he must be confeffed to look with little attention upon fcenes thus perpetually changing, who cannot catch fome of the figures before they are made vulgar by reiterated defcriptions.

It has been difcovered by Sir Ifaac Newton, that the diftinct and primogenial colours are only feven; but every eye can witness, that from various mixtures, in various proportions, infinite diverfifications of tints may be produced. In like manner, the paffions of the mind, which put the world in motion, and produce all the buftle and eagerness of the bufy crowds that fwarm upon the earth; the paffions, from whence arife all the pleafures and pains that we fee and hear of, if we analyse the mind of man, are very few; but those few agitated and combined, as external caufes fhall happen to ope rate, and modified by prevailing opinions and accidental caprices, make such frequent alterations on the fuface of life, that the show, while we are busied in delineating it, vanishes from the view, and a new set of objects fucceed, doomed to the fame fhortnefs of duration with the former: thus curiofity may always find employment, and the busy part of mankind will furnish the contemplative with the materials of fpecu lation to the end of time.

The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are pre-occupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance

ignorance or idlenefs, by which fome difcourage others and fome themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.

NUMB. 99. TUESDAY, October 16, 1753.

-Magnis tamen excidit aufis.

But in the glorious enterprize he dy’d.

OVID.

ADDISON.

T has always been the practice of mankind, to

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judge of actions by the event. The fame attempts, conducted in the fame manner, but terminated by different fuccefs, produce different judgments: they who attain their wishes, never want celebrators of their wisdom and their virtue; and they that miscarry, are quickly discovered to have been defective not only in mental but in moral qualities. The world will never be long without fome good reafon to hate the unhappy: their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not fufficient to fink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be fuperadded: he that fails in his endeavours after wealth or power, will not long retain either honesty or courage.

This fpecies of injustice has fo long prevailed in univerfal practice, that it feems likewife to have in

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fected fpeculation: fo few minds are able to feparate the ideas of greatnefs and profperity, that even Sir William Temple has determined, "that he who can "deferve the name of a hero, muft not only be virtuous but fortunate."

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By this unreasonable diftribution of praise and blame, none have fuffered oftener than projectors; whofe rapidity of imagination and vastness of defign raife fuch envy in their fellow-mortals, that every eye watches for their fall, and every heart exults at their diftreffes: yet even a projector may gain favour by fuccefs; and the tongue that was prepared to hifs, then endeavours to excel others in loudness of plaufe. When Coriolanus, in Shakespeare, deserted to Aufidius the Volfcian fervants at first infulted him, even while he ftood under the protection of the household gods; but when they faw that the project took effect, and the stranger was feated at the head of the table, one of them very judiciously observes, “ that "he always thought there was more in him than he "could think."

Machiavel has justly animadverted on the different notice taken by all fucceeding times, of the two great projectors, Catiline and Gafar. Both formed the fame project, and intended to raise themselves to power, by fubverting the commonwealth they pursued their defign, perhaps, with equal abilities, and with equal virtue; but Catiline perished in the field, and Cafar returned from Phar-, falia with unlimited authority: and from that time, every monarch of the earth has thought himself honoured by a comparison with Cafar; and Cati

Line has been never mentioned, but that his name might be applied to traitors and incendiaries.

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In an age more remote, Xerxes projected the conqueft of Greece, and brought down the power of Afia against it but after the world had been filled with expectation and terror, his army was beaten, his fleet was destroyed, and Xerxes has been never mentioned without contempt.

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A few years afterwards, Greece likewife had her turn of giving birth to a projector; who invading Afia with a fmall army, went forward in fearch of adventures, and by his escape from one danger, gained only more rashness to rush into another: he ftormed city after city, over-ran kingdom after kingdom, fought battles only for barren victory, and invaded nations only that he might make his way through them to new invasions: but having been fortunate in the execution of his projects, he died with the name of Alexander the Great.

These are, indeed, events of ancient times; but human nature is always the fame, and every age will afford us inftances of publick cenfures influenced by events. The great bufinefs of the middle centuries, was the holy war; which undoubtedly was a noble project, and was for a long time profecuted with a fpirit equal to that with which it had been contrived: but the ardour of the European heroes only hurried them to deftruction; for a long time they could not gain the territories for which they fought, and, when at laft gained, they could not keep them: their expeditions, therefore, have been the scoff of idleness and ignorance, their understanding and their virtue have been equally vili

fied, their conduct has been ridiculed, and their caufe has been defamed.

When Columbus had engaged king Ferdinand in the discovery of the other hemifphere, the failors, with whom he embarked in the expedition, had fo little confidence in their commander, that after having been long at fea looking for coafts, which they expected never to find, they raised a general mutiny, and demanded to return. He found means to footh them into a permiffion to continue the fame course three days longer, and on the evening of the third day defcried land. Had the impa

tience of his crew denied him a few hours of the time requested, what had been his fate but to have come back with the infamy of a vain projector, who had betrayed the king's credulity to useless expences, and rifked his life in feeking countries that had no existence? how would those that had rejected his propofals, have triumphed in their acuteness? and when would his name have been mentioned, but with the makers of potable gold and malleable glafs?

The laft royal projectors with whom the world has been troubled, were Charles of Sweden and the Czar of Muscovy. Charles, if any judgment may be formed of his defigns by his measures and his enquiries, had purpofed firft to dethrone the Czar, then to lead his army through pathlefs deferts into China, thence to make his way by the fword through the whole circuit of Afia, and by the conqueft of Turkey to unite Sweden with his new dominions: but this mighty project was crufhed at Pultowa; and Charles has fince been confidered as a madman by

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